Big Brother's long fingers

It is perhaps due to my ignorance that I am noticing this now, or maybe I just dismissed it as impossible, but I was pretty shocked by a finding that struck me tonight

Especially after 9/11, it is a common occurrence that Europeans pity citizens of the United States, because their privacy is invaded at every corner, and all that newspeak and fear-mongering really remind us of Orwell's 1984. My father is even so concerned about his privacy and personal information, that he turned down an opportunity to go to the post-2001 USA several times.

In fact, when I was about to leave for the Land of Freedom to spend a semester there last fall, I even had to pay for being watched and tracked. My visa request would not be granted unless I paid a $100 fee to SEVIS, an organization whose very purpose is to spy on foreign students and visitors.

I always thought that compassion is all that we had to offer in this context, but it turns out I was wrong: Obviously, an agreement between US and EU [NY Times] is about to happen, that will give the US government access to personal data of EU citizens. Am I the only one who feels this is an outrage? Any reason we should trust Team America with this?

Of course, they claim they will only "look for suspicious activity", but just consider how the FBI abuses the Patriot Act. Do you remember that sweet pot of honey they were feeding everyone prior to the Patriot Act vote? This is a binding agreement, and indeed is a big deal. If the EU will have to turn over any such information US would ask for, I think I have yet another reason to move to Norway.

Fortunately, there are some respectable voices speaking out against this. “I am very worried that once this will be adopted, it will serve as a pretext to freely share our personal data with anyone, so I want it to be very clear about exactly what it means and how it will work,” said Sophia in ’t Veld, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands who has been an outspoken advocate of privacy rights.

Of course, “the fight against transnational crime and terrorism requires the ability to share personal data for law enforcement.” Naturally, I am going to feel safer immediately, knowing that Ahmed ibn Muhammad, who sells Gyros in Frankfurt, has his credit report resting safe within the hands of the DHS, right next to mine.

But wait, it gets better...! “The Europeans have agreed that the American government’s internal oversight system may be good enough to provide accountability for how Europeans’ data is used.” Yeah right. I wouldn't trust the American government's internal oversight system to oversee berries-picking in my backyard. They would probably lose an unencrypted laptop with full recordings of everything I said and did during the past 18 months.

Duh. Can someone please tell me that everything is going to be okay...?

War on Photography

I've been planning to blog about this topic for ages, and now the mighty security guru Bruce Schneier did that for me in a Guardian newspaper essay:

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Just look at this bastard. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't hesitate to kill a kitten. :-P

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it's a movie-plot threat.

A movie-plot threat is a specific threat, vivid in our minds like the plot of a movie. You remember them from the months after the 9/11 attacks: anthrax spread from crop dusters, a contaminated milk supply, terrorist scuba divers armed with almanacs. Our imaginations run wild with detailed and specific threats, from the news, and from actual movies and television shows. These movie plots resonate in our minds and in the minds of others we talk to. And many of us get scared.

Terrorists taking pictures is a quintessential detail in any good movie. Of course it makes sense that terrorists will take pictures of their targets. They have to do reconnaissance, don't they? We need 45 minutes of television action before the actual terrorist attack -- 90 minutes if it's a movie -- and a photography scene is just perfect. It's our movie-plot terrorists that are photographers, even if the real-world ones are not.

The old town of Bratislava clearly promotes terrorism without any qualms...

The problem with movie-plot security is it only works if we guess the plot correctly. If we spend a zillion dollars defending Wimbledon and terrorists blow up a different sporting event, that's money wasted. If we post guards all over the Underground and terrorists bomb a crowded shopping area, that's also a waste. If we teach everyone to be alert for photographers, and terrorists don't take photographs, we've wasted money and effort, and taught people to fear something they shouldn't.

And even if terrorists did photograph their targets, the math doesn't make sense. Billions of photographs are taken by honest people every year, 50 billion by amateurs alone in the US And the national monuments you imagine terrorists taking photographs of are the same ones tourists like to take pictures of. If you see someone taking one of those photographs, the odds are infinitesimal that he's a terrorist.

Of course, it's far easier to explain the problem than it is to fix it. Because we're a species of storytellers, we find movie-plot threats uniquely compelling. A single vivid scenario will do more to convince people that photographers might be terrorists than all the data I can muster to demonstrate that they're not.

Fear aside, there aren't many legal restrictions on what you can photograph from a public place that's already in public view. If you're harassed, it's almost certainly a law enforcement official, public or private, acting way beyond his authority. There's nothing in any post-9/11 law that restricts your right to photograph.

This is worth fighting. Search "photographer rights" on Google and download one of the several wallet documents that can help you if you get harassed; I found one for the UK, US, and Australia. Don't cede your right to photograph in public. Don't propagate the terrorist photographer story. Remind them that prohibiting photography was something we used to ridicule about the USSR. Eventually sanity will be restored, but it may take a while.

---

Yeah. I soo can't wait. :-) But I can't really blame those poor people, my 77 mm diameter lens could easily fire even a large RPG. So beware, for next time you find yourself on the wrong end of my viewfinder, it may be more than just a bird that flies out! :-D

As related information from nycphotorights.com, which has some pretty interesting posts as well, if you can chew through all the excessive exclamation marks and immature posting, (the admin must be like 15, not more ;-)), there is one about Fox reporter doing a story on photographer harassment on the Union station in Washington D.C.

While he is interviewing the Amtrak spokesman, who says that photography is perfectly alright in the Amtrak part of the station, they both get assaulted by a security guard who makes a big speech about how photography is illegal and not allowed at the station.

Priceless. You just can't make this stuff up, it's way too unbelievable. :-D I wonder if anyone gets fired for this... See the video here.

Free stuff in your local church!

No, really! Go and get it, don't believe anyone trying to stop you...!

(Bruce Schneier reported this cool story.)

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JACKSONVILLE, Ore. — A pair of hoax ads on Craigslist cost an Oregon man much of what he owned.

The ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.

But Robert Salisbury had no plans to leave. The independent contractor was at Emigrant Lake when he got a call from a woman who had stopped by his house to claim his horse.

On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.

"I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back," Salisbury said. "They showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did."

The driver sped away after rebuking Salisbury. On his way home he spotted other cars filled with his belongings.

Once home he was greeted by close to 30 people rummaging through his barn and front porch.

The trespassers, armed with printouts of the ad, tried to brush him off. "They honestly thought that because it appeared on the Internet it was true," Salisbury said. "It boggles the mind."
---

Wow, I'm speechless. People are morons. Of course, free stuff is the meaning of life, and what teh intarwubs says is always true. I hope everyone who took anything will be persecuted as for burglary.

The power of p0rn

And after a brief break, the thing that everyone has been expecting has finally come! Step right up, step right up, everyone, and read the latest shreds of my mighty wisdom, this time about how the witty and the pretty prevail over the shitty security, and how is that no pity. Uh, okay, okay, sorry, keep the eggs and tomatoes to yourself.

According to the BBC:
A virtual stripper is helping to defeat anti-spam security checks.
Spammers have created a Windows game which shows a woman in a state of undress when people correctly type in text shown in an accompanying image.

Of course, the text comes from online captchas, designed to prevent automated abuse of the resources and services a company provides, intended to make sure that an actual person is trying to access.

Well.. I know I shouldn't side with the shady lowlifes, but this is just so ingenious. :-D Why not let the horny, libidinous losers do the dirty work, that your algorithms can't? They will even have fun in the process, and improve their cognitive and typing skills as well.

The Internet is, after all, for p0rn. ;-)

Bombs or Cholera. Pick one?

It is expectable that poor people in a country with seriously damaged infrastructure would suffer from various diseases. Thus, it came as a little surprise that a few weeks ago, cases of cholera started to appear around Baghdad. According to BBC, at least 2000 cases have been confirmed, and the number is growing fast. It is also far from final, as there have been around 30 thousand cases of acute water diarrhea, which may later be confirmed as cholera.

Cholera is a disease often linked to contaminated supplies of drinking water. "It causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting, and patients, particularly children and the elderly, are vulnerable to dangerous dehydration as a result. Treating the condition - or rather alleviating these severe effects, requires only simple measures. However, the clean water and rehydration salts required are often in short supply in areas where they are needed most."
Indeed, the article also reports that only one in five Iraqis have access to effectively sanitised water. That struck me as little weird, so I started to dig around a little. Obviously, most waterworks in the city are now entirely without chlorine. Curious. Isn't chlorine cheap and easy to produce?

However, chlorine has been dubbed Evil™, and it's import banned. Why? Iraqi insurgents have used it as a payload for bombs a few times. According to WHO, there are 100 kilotons of water sanitiser waiting on border with Jordan, and because of fear someone could use it to make bombs, it can not get into the country.
As is often the case, the worst damage does not come from the terrorist actions themselves, but from our overreaction to them. Chlorine chemical bombs are not particularly effective, compared to other possible payloads, and their usage is dying out. According to wiki: "Higher levels of exposure can cause fatal lung damage; but because the gas is heavier than air it will not dissipate until well after an explosion, and so it is generally considered ineffective as an improvised chemical weapon." Although chlorine, particularly potassium chlorate, can also be used as an ingredient to produce some explosives, it generally is not effective either, and can be easily replaced.

But the "side-effects" of these bombings are adverse. They have caused the country to lose its supply of drinking water, which could cost thousands of people their lives. It definitely shows how US Army cares about civilians of the area. Also, surprisingly, no one thought of banning salt. :-P All you need to produce chlorine is salt, water, and electricity. Then again, we should probably also ban water. And electricity.

Now here's a thought for terrorists. Next time, mix a little wheat in your bombs. Following this pattern, the security forces will identify it as a bomb ingredient and issue a countrywide ban. Of course, people will be dying of famine, but that's only necessary to keep them safe from evil insurgents. In your face, terrorists!

Mother Russia, father bomb...

After last month's resumption of regular patrols of strategic bombers, which were suspended after the 1991 Soviet Union breakup, Red Army* flexes its muscles yet again, this time by testing of Father Of All Bombs, an air delivered fuel-air bomb, yielding the equivalent of 44 tons of TNT. That makes it approximately four times as powerful as US Army's MOAB. (Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or Mother Of All Bombs.) It's not the bomb I want to talk about, though, it's the propaganda and attitude of Russian officials that caught me breathless.
"The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability,"' says Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. Gotta love that guy. This statement is misleading at the very least, because most nuclear bombs have way more power than that. For example, Fat Man, one of the first atomic bombs ever used, that was dropped on Nagasaki, had a yield of cca. 21 kilotons of TNT. That gives the mighty FOAB credit to merely 0.2 % of Fat Man's destructive power, which, while comparable, is nowhere close.

See the Russian report video for yourself:


But Alex is just awesome, he doesn't stop there. Sharing his wisdom, (estimated to be at least 23, ;-)) with the world, he claims, that the bomb is "environmentally friendly". Excuse me? Okay, maybe it does not have nuclear fallout with long half-life, but calling a bomb worth of 44 tons of TNT, that leaves "lunar landscape" in its wake, "environmentally friendly" is just outright funny.

Tu-160, the bomber that dropped daddy of all bombs earlier this week.

However, funny turns to insanely idiotic. As bloomberg.com reports:
The new weapon disperses a cloud of explosive material that is set off by a charge and produces "an ultrasonic shockwave and an incredibly high temperature," Perviy Kanal said on its Web site. After the blast, "the soil looks like a lunar landscape," according to the report.

The new bomb carries fewer explosives than the U.S. device, while the temperature at the center of its blast is twice as high and the area of damage much greater, Perviy Kanal said.

"This has made it possible to reduce the accuracy requirements and made it cheaper, which is necessary in the current situation," Yuri Balyko, head of the Defense Ministry's 30th Central Research Institute, told the channel.

The new weapon will allow Russia "to ensure the nation's security and at the same time battle international terrorism in any situation and in any region," Rukshin said.

Oh my. I feel dumber just for having read this exhibition of pure wisdom. So we have a weapon that turns an enormous area to lunar landscape, which, in turn, allows us to reduce the accuracy requirements, and, therefore, we can use it to battle international terrorism in any situation and in any region! Holy zombie Jesus, Russian military brains are just precious! :-D Now, if I were a Chechnyan partisan, that would be all I needed to hear to capture a building in the middle of Moscow, and wait for the brave Red Army to level their capital city with one of these babies.

__
* I know it's not called Red Army anymore. But hey, it seems that not many things have changed apart from the name...

Observing the security

After several positive posts, the time has come to write a little rant. Even before entering the US, one thing was clear to me. They appreciate security. It doesn't necessarily have to work. As long as it makes them feel safer, a security theater is all they need. At some schools, it's mandatory to have transparent backpacks in order to prevent shooting scenarios. Others want to cut loss on lives by giving the students a fair fighting chance. Bulletproof textbooks are sure to give them an edge over a gunner!

In the meanwhile, plenty of watch lists are created, to keep everyone safe. Don't worry though, the overfunded homeland security department has done its best to protect us against major threats, such as sinister blinking devices, or deadly biological warfare. Oh, and of course, dropping your iPod into the toilet will also be professionally handled by a full-scale terror alert. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I think they deserve our utmost respect for keeping the country safe, though, especially now that the majority of Americans are officially homegrown terrorists. Of course, a lot of security is in place not because it really works, but because it covers the asses of those responsible. As my favourite security guru, Bruce Schneier, so eloquently advises, refuse to be terrorized!

Here on Roosevelt University, the security is also tight. There are security guards everywhere, and I'm glad that we're allowed to go to the restroom without having to identify ourselves. Last weekend, for example, I had to show my temporary meal card four (!) times before I could have my lunch. First time when entering the building, second time when entering the cafeteria, then at the counter, and then the fourth time to some overzealous security-conscious guard inside.

The irony is, though, that the temporary meal card is a simple printed business card with no photo or security measures whatsoever. The cost to make a copy of such a card is under one dollar, and literally anyone can use it. On the card it says that it was valid only for the first weekend, yet it's been used for three weeks already. Some of my friends have thrown theirs away after those two days, and couldn't get their meals until they managed to get a replacement. The security people were treating them like scum for having thrown out a worthless piece of paper that was no longer valid!

Student ID is something we use everywhere except eating at the University Center. They completely rely on it for security and identification. However, to get my student ID, I did not have to prove my identity! I just walked in and said who I was, they took a picture and I was good to go. Those people should realise that the security chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and that if you take several eyes of thick steel and pin them together with a paper clip, it isn't going to work. It's pointless to check student ID at every corner, if one can get a student photo ID just based on their claim to be a student.

Security is not only a problem at the university. For example, at the jazz festival, a simple blue shirt with the sign SECURITY gave you the right to boss everyone around as you pleased. Tell them where and when to go, what and how could they photograph, where to sit, how long to stay at a given place... and they did so with great zeal and obvious pleasure. I have never seen less professional and significant, and at the same time more annoying security.

In the Michigan lake, the lifeguard people go to great lengths to protect you. They care about your wellbeing to such an extent, that they do not let you swim further, than twenty meters from the beach, where the water is slightly below chest-level for me. I expected that there would be some sort of a barrier in the water, and people observing the swimmers from a watchtower on the beach. That was obviously not enough, because there was also a chain of lifeguard boats facing the beach approximately every thirty meters, with people yelling at you to swim back when you entered neck-deep water. Oh my. I was having a really hard time restraining myself.

It was really hot on the beach, and so it came as little surprise that later on, one woman collapsed and fainted. She was quite dehydrated, and possibly in need of an IV, so we called 911 to send an ambulance. First on the scene was a police car. They added to the overall chaos by "taking care of the situation", but that was understandable. Maybe they were around with nothing else to do, so they took the call as well. However, before the ambulance arrived, two more patrol cars came by with their sirens ablaze, and a huge firetruck! Now, I understand that the woman was in need of water, but sending a whole firetruck to the beach still seemed like a bit of an overkill to me... no wonder that those departments are eternally low on funds, if they spend their resources like this. :-( I hear sirens several dozen times per day in my room. If every call is handled in such manner, I'm no longer surprised.

Laser spy microphone for $3

Whee, that looks interesting, MacGyver would be proud. It probably is not one of the most convenient and inconspicuous surveillance methods, but hey, not everyone is 007. :-) I just have hard time believing that the signal from the photo-cell can get strong enough without being amplified somehow.
(http://youtube.com/watch?v=YVas2_bt6xc)